


Secret Admirer

by Frangipanidownunder



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-11
Updated: 2019-02-11
Packaged: 2019-10-26 02:27:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17737280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Frangipanidownunder/pseuds/Frangipanidownunder
Summary: Tiny fic to include the words: wear, sweep, collapse, painter, hook.





	Secret Admirer

She lifts the envelope to her nose and sniffs it daintily. Her fingernails are polished pink. How has he never noticed this before? There’s a rash of freckles on her right cheek, like she’s missed covering them up with her foundation. He loves really seeing her. He’s noticing new stuff all the time. Like, the new earrings she’s taken to wearing. Small hearts. Double hearts, linked together. The scent of her. The feel of her. It’s a sensory thrill every time they’re together now.

“Who could have sent it?” She lays it on the desk and runs a nail over the V of the envelope.

“Sent what?” he asks, trying to muster enough innocence in his voice to mask his desperation for her to open the card.

“It’s perfumed, Mulder. Don’t you think that’s strange?”

Is it? He crooks a finger under his shirt collar. “How so?”

She glances across at him and frowns, mouth quirked down. “I’ve been sent a perfumed card in the internal mail and you don’t think that’s the least bit odd?”

He taps the top of a folder. “We work in the X-Files division, Scully. You’ll have to do better than that to hook me in.

Her soft giggle takes him by surprise. “Should I open it? What if it’s anthrax? Isn’t there something in the staff safety and security policy…”

“Anthrax, Scully?”

She shrugs. The collar of her blouse slips down. He sees the black strap of her bra. His breath catches in his throat. His groin throbs. As he leans back to stand up, the pile of folders collapses, sending crime-scene photos and witness statements scattering across the floor. “Shit,” he mutters and kneels to collect the papers.

“It’s an invitation,” she says, heels clipping with precision as she walks to his side. “To that new gallery downtown. There’s an opening for a local painter. I’ve seen some of his art. It’s good, my kind of thing. I think I told you about him.”

Hopefully, she won’t notice the slight tremble in his fingers as he slots reports into files and stacks them up one by one. “A secret date, Scully? That’s got to be better than poison.”

She shoots him a look. He shoots him a look. Where did that come from? And what was this even about? He told her he loved her not so long ago and she dismissed it as a drug-induced proclamation. Now he was asking her out by anonymous letters and she has every right to be suspicious.

The card is slotted back in the envelope and she’s using it as a fan. Her hair flips up at the sides. Freckles. Earrings. Tongue lapping over her lips.

“Should I go?” Her voice is breathy as she muses.

“Do you want to?”

“What are you doing tonight, Mulder?”

He doesn’t say, ‘it’s up to you.’ He says nothing. He stays on his knees, head hanging. He should be in the stocks. He should be at the guillotine. He should be praying at her feet for forgiveness. He’s a fool.

“Maybe I’ll go home early.” and then she’s gone, door clicking behind her.

Later, he stands behind a topiary pine, shaped like a candle and flame, at the entrance to the gallery. He holds a single rose in the crook of his elbow. He’s certain she won’t come but he watches the crowd, all the same. She’s at the end of the queue. Elegant in a black sheath dress, cross hanging between the rounds of her collarbone, hearts shining from each ear. 

She smiles at him. “You look handsome, Mulder.” Her arms slips through his and she takes the rose, inhaling. “Thank you for this. And this…opportunity.”

“How did you know it would be me?” The pearlescent light inside the gallery makes her hair shine like the fire in an opal and he pulls her close against his side. Her skin is free from foundation, freckles on display as perfect as the art on the walls.

She bops his nose with the flower. “You weren’t pissed,” she says, grinning. “You didn’t offer to shoot the sender.”

His mouth pops open before he offers up a concessionary laugh.

“And, the biggest giveaway? The card smelled like you. I’d know that scent anywhere.” She leans up to kiss his cheek and whispers, “it’s my favourite smell.”


End file.
